Certificate for home network

[scottismyname]

I have a general question.

Up until recently, I was using my router (Asus AC-68) to get a LetsEncrypt certificate, and using this cert for accessing my router and other things on my home network (using Caddy).

Recently, v1 was depreated and my router stopped getting certificates and it’s now expired. Instead of relying on my router, I was thinking of just getting my own domain name for home.

The problem is that my ISP blocks ports 80 and 443, so according to what I’ve read in the documentation, I would need to use the DNS challenge option.

My question is, can I just install certbot on a local PC running Ubuntu 19.04, try to get the cert using this command:

certbot --manual --preferred-challenges dns -d mywebsite.com

Then create the approriate DNS entries via my provider, and then use the certificate it outputs? Trying to make sure this would work before buying a domain.

[_az]

Why settle for manual DNS entries?

Buy your domain, and host its DNS with one of the many free DNS hosts that are already known to easily integrate with Let’s Encrypt clients.

For example, Cloudflare for DNS hosting, and use the certbot-dns-cloudflare plugin.

If you want to go for a trial run without investing the money, try getting a free domain from Freenom.

[JimPas]

Caddy is currently at 2.0 beta. Caddy should automatically take care of Let’s Encrypt certificates (TLS-3), or am I mistaken? You probably have to update your version of Caddy.
Your ISP is blocking your ports?

[mholt]

@scottismyname

Recently, v1 was depreated and my router stopped getting certificates and it’s now expired.

Caddy 1 isn't deprecated -- it's the current stable version. Certificate management should still be working just fine. If your "router stopped getting certificates and it’s now expired," then it's probably because of DNS or firewall/LAN settings. You'll have error messages in your logs. What are the error messages that were emitted by Caddy?